


Binary Explosive

by sdwolfpup



Series: Spies Like Us [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Battle Couple, Bombs, Competence Kink, Established Relationship, F/M, as plot device, both of them need to calm down, but not really, they're in peril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:01:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29356134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sdwolfpup/pseuds/sdwolfpup
Summary: His breath is hot against her ear, and his body is hot pressed all the way against hers where they're standing tied together chest-to-chest in this small, concrete room. It would, in other circumstances, be fun to be bound this close to her very sexy and very irritating husband.It's not fun when there's a bomb strapped between them, set to go off if their combined heart rates go over two hundred.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Series: Spies Like Us [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2177337
Comments: 72
Kudos: 165
Collections: The Exchange that was Promised: Jaime x Brienne Smut Swap 2021





	Binary Explosive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jencat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat/gifts).



> Thank you to the usual suspects, which is why I won't identify them now.
> 
> Jencat, I wish I could have written something for all of your prompts but could only fit in this one: "Your heart's beating fast"/ "That's on you". I hope you enjoy it!
> 
>  **ETA post-reveals:** I was super excited to get jen as my recipient, because I adore her and was looking forward to writing something to her prompts & tastes! When I was casting about for what exactly TO write, I saw this quote prompt and my mind went IMMEDIATELY to the due South episode, "Red, White, or Blue," where Fraser and Vecchio's hearts are connected to a bomb in exactly this way. (If you want to see it, the relevant bit is [here](https://youtu.be/4j0YVHOnLDE) on YT; it's my greatest regret I couldn't work in "I'm gonna kill you!" "That's very possible" in a reasonable manner into the fic, too.) Inspired by the setup, I flailed about how to get it to work within the word limit confines, and Brynn suggested spies, and the rest unfolded from there. (She also suggested Jaime should have a knife on his person, which was clearly genius and proves again all my best ideas come from her, hee.) The rest of this is a saga not worth retelling but I could not have done it without Firesign to complain to, forbiddenfantasies to throw myself at in despair and who talked me down off of multiple "I give up" ledges, and brynn who very carefully took the initial draft and helped me fix it and then stroked my hair and told me I was pretty when I needed it most. It takes a village, y'all. I'm lucky mine is full of such amazing people. Thank you to them and to the Smut Swap organizers, wildlingoftarth and tarthiana, for setting this whole thing up!

**_Binary explosive - Two substances which are not explosive until they are mixed_ **

* * *

“Any ideas?” Jaime asks near Brienne's ear, and if she were able to pull away enough to glare at him, she would.

“I'm not talking to you,” she hisses into his ear in return. There's nowhere else to say it, given how they're tied up. 

“This is my fault now?” He sounds infuriatingly offended. 

“You couldn't keep your mouth shut.” 

“I don’t think it’s my _mouth_ Connington had a problem with. Besides--I thought you liked my mouth,” he whispers against her skin. It shouldn't be arousing given her annoyance and the danger they're in, but Brienne's body doesn't seem to care about either. It never does. 

She inhales slowly through her nose, trying to keep her heart rate down. “Are you really going to get us blown up because you can't stop flirting for five minutes?” 

“Shouldn't you be happy I still have such an effect on you?” His breath is hot against her ear, and his body is hot pressed all the way against hers where they're standing tied together chest-to-chest in this small, concrete room. It would, in other circumstances, be fun to be bound this close to her very sexy and very irritating husband. 

It's not fun when there's a bomb strapped between them, set to go off if their combined heart rates go over two hundred. 

They've been hovering around one-forty since they'd been shoved in here and the door sealed shut behind them, but Jaime's been mostly quiet during that time. Letting her fume in peace, he'd said. And, yes, he still has a dramatic physical effect on her even though they've known each other for eight years and been married for two, but his ability to nettle her has also only gotten more pronounced the better he's learned what makes her tick. Now he can wield it with the same casual ease as a gun or a sword or his extremely talented tongue. 

The heart rate monitor beeps as hers goes up two more beats and Brienne takes another calming breath. 

She glances down-- _144_. Good enough. 

“I don't have any ideas yet,” she admits. 

Jaime hums a little. “So you _are_ talking to me.”

“Jaime, I swear to the gods--”

The monitors beep loudly, cutting her off. She exhales slowly.

“You seem tense, maybe we should talk about this.”

“We can argue about your idiotic heroics _after_ we've dealt with the bomb,” she says. 

“I wouldn't say it was idiotic,” he mutters, but he lets it drop, tugging at the thick ropes at her back. The bomb is a thin block of plastic explosives tucked snugly between their stomachs, and it digs in when he moves. 

“So: how should we disarm it?” Brienne asks. 

“Very carefully,” he says, his voice dry. She can picture the wry smile twisting his mouth, though she can't see it. All she can see is the empty room that they've thoroughly examined to no avail. There's not even a hidden camera; just a sealed door, a light buzzing overhead behind unbreakable plastic, and the bomb wrapped around Jaime's torso. Wired monitors hang around their necks, RFID electrodes on their chests transmitting every traitorous heartbeat. Connington had gleefully warned them that removing the electrodes or cutting the monitors' wires would kill them just as swiftly as hitting two hundred. 

They've got their arms free, but no weapons. Even their belts had been removed in a hasty search before Connington and his team had bolted to the assassination attempt they thought was still on. It wasn't--discovering who the target was had been Brienne's job, and communicating that to W.O.L.F. to stop it had been Jaime's. They'd done _that_ part of the mission just fine. 

But that means the extraction team will be a long time coming, if ever. She and Jaime need to do something about the bomb themselves. 

They've both been in the spy game long enough to understand the risks of field work. But Brienne wishes she'd come on this mission alone, if only because she probably should've expected Jaime's response to this particular situation. Of course, she hadn't anticipated Connington saying such terrible things about her where Jaime could hear. 

“Is your hand okay?” she asks Jaime, trying again to shift and loosen the ropes. The bindings give a fraction of an inch. 

“I can hardly feel it,” he says. “And when my knuckles hurt I just think about that asshole's bloody face and all the pain goes away.” 

Brienne drops her chin to Jaime's shoulder. Her loyal, impulsive husband. “You should've let me go with him, I would've been able to get free.”

“We got what we needed--you didn't have to risk yourself. Not after what he said.” She can hear him seething, can feel it in the deep inhalation of his chest. The heart monitor beeps upward again. 

“He's said those things before and I was fine.” Well. She's fine _now_. When Connington had said them the first time years ago, Brienne had been devastated, so choked by her own shame that she'd been unable to do anything except flee. It had been spitefully thrilling to at least see Jaime break Ron's face when she couldn't break her cover to do it herself. But she hates that Jaime's the one with the retribution bomb on his body because of it. If she gets free of the ropes and the monitor, he'll still be wrapped up in plastic explosives, and he'll want her to leave without him. 

She'll die first, but she's not going to tell him that. 

“I only regret that I got you into this, too,” Jaime says in the soft voice that always undoes her with its vulnerability and truth. 

She kisses the side of his neck in response, a soft press of her lips to the comforting familiarity of his skin, and the heart monitor beeps several notches higher. 

Brienne grins a little. “Your heart's beating fast.” 

“That's on you,” he says; the rough stubble on his jaw scrapes her cheek when he smiles. 

She checks their total-- _155_ \--and they both take steadying breaths. “As I see it, we have two problems,” she says. 

“Only two? That's low for us.”

Brienne snorts. “We need a little distance to get a better look at the bomb, and then a knife to cut the wires.” 

“I can solve one of those problems--remember Lorath?” 

She does, vividly. That had been the mission when she'd accidentally discovered where Jaime keeps his emergency knife. It had been their first year as partners and she'd been mortified. But now-- 

“Fuck, I love you,” she says with giddy relief, and he beams at her. 

“You always did appreciate me for my weaponry.” The emphatic way he says _weaponry_ has her struggling not to laugh. No matter the situation they're in, Jaime always knows how to ease the tension. 

“Can you reach it like this?” 

He tries to move his hand between them, but they're too close together for that. “No.”

“I think I can solve our remaining problem, then, but it's going to take some wiggling.”

“That sounds dangerous.” 

“Only if you can't control yourself,” she tells him sternly. 

“I'm not the one whose heart rate shot up when I merely said something.” 

Brienne is tempted to bite the tendon of his neck just to prove a point about heart rates, but she knows he likes it too much to be safe. Instead, she explains how they'll have to angle their bodies to put tension on the bindings without accidentally tugging unseen wires out of place. 

“We just need enough room to get to the knife,” she finishes. “You ready?” 

“I'll do my best.” 

“We should take a few calming breaths first,” she suggests, and Jaime nods, his hair tickling her nose. She wrinkles it, tries to bring her arm up around his back enough to scratch, which pulls their bodies into even closer contact. Jaime gives a small, low rumble that she feels in her own chest and the heart monitor rises noticeably. 

“Stop it,” she whispers, finally reaching her nose. 

“You stop it.” His leg shifts in between hers, and Brienne is suddenly aware of the width of his muscled thigh bracketed by her own and it takes all of her control to not rub against it. 

Jaime's laugh has a slightly desperate tinge. “You haven't even started wiggling yet,” he says in a voice rough as the ropes trapping them. 

“This is exactly why Catelyn gives us that look whenever she sends us on missions together.” 

“Because you're so turned on by me?” 

She huffs in his ear in disbelief. “Who was it who decided a walk-in closet in our target's house was a good place for a quickie?” 

“There was no reason for you to strip down to your tank top while I was opening that safe.”

“I was hot.”

“It was winter and we'd cut the power hours before,” he retorts. “The only thing that was hot was your--”

“Jaime,” she warns him, and he chuckles again but doesn't finish the sentence. Not that he needs to--he'd been very vocal in that closet about exactly how she'd felt around him. She remembers every frantic minute. 

_163_. Gods, they're doomed. 

“We have to focus,” Brienne says. The problem is that all she can focus on is the feel of Jaime's arms holding her tightly, the press of his knee between hers, his-- 

“Do you have an erection already?” she demands. The heart monitor beeps dramatically. 

Jaime tenses in her hold and the sound of his slow breathing is loud in her ear. The beeps soften, dropping. “You brought up the closet,” he grumbles. “And that made me think about the boat.” 

“Why did that make you think about the _boat_ and not, I don't know, the bathroom?” 

He grunts. “You were talking about being hot.” 

Right. They'd gone undercover as strangers on the enormous yacht of Euron Greyjoy, in the middle of the Summer Sea, the ocean utterly calm and the air oppressively hot. To blend in, Brienne had had to strip down to the tiny bikini Samwell had forced her to take as part of her gear. Jaime had been in an even tinier speedo. They'd stumbled on the target at the same time, and when guards had stumbled on _them_ a few minutes later, they'd had to pretend they were hooking up in order not to get shot. 

There hadn't been a lot of pretending happening even while the guards were watching, and none at all once they'd left. 

That had been the first time they'd had sex. They'd been through hell together in the Riverlands by then, had hammered out a relationship that sat on the knife edge of partners and friends, had teased around the edges of more, though Brienne had never truly imagined Jaime had wanted her as much as she had him. 

She never doubts it, now. 

She checks the frantically beeping heart rate monitor and blanches when she sees _179_. The jolt of panic that immediately follows shoots them up to _182_ and she tears her eyes away and falls inside herself, breathing calm through her roaring blood. Brienne pictures their home, their private yard, the cute shutters that Jaime had picked for the windows. She recalls the oasis of their bedroom, and lazy mornings spent at their dining room table, eating breakfast and reading all of the international papers they get delivered every weekend. 

_164._ Better. 

“No more reminiscing,” Jaime says, and he sounds surprisingly rueful considering this is the closest they've gotten to dying in years precisely because of said memories. 

Brienne buries her face against his neck, grounds herself in the scent that's been by her side for so long, allowing herself just a moment to breathe him in. He nuzzles into her hair in return. “We'll have time later,” she promises them both. “Now, keep still--I'm gonna make some space. Grab the knife as soon as you can.” 

They loosen their hold on each other as she leans her torso backward as far as the rope will allow. It's not much--mostly she can still only see the side of his face. Brienne walks her legs so they're on both sides of Jaime's and then she lets him and the ropes take her weight, swaying her body side to side to try to loosen the binding. It doesn't take much of that to have his cock hard against her pelvis again. They both groan when she has to sit on his bent thighs to increase the tension in the ropes. His fingers are iron on her waist to hold her in place, and he's trembling with the effort of holding himself still while Brienne wriggles against him. 

“Can you fit?” Brienne grinds the question out between clenched teeth. 

“Nearly there,” he rasps and she tries not to think of any other time he's moaned that against her skin. Not that it's any less intoxicating to feel his cock jutting heavy between her legs--the thin cotton khakis Samwell had had them both wear to make them look slightly less threatening leave little to the imagination when they're so close together. And her imagination doesn't need much help when she knows so well how Jaime feels buried deep inside her cunt. 

“Is this enough?” It's more a plea than a question, but instead of answering Jaime moves between the arch of her legs in response. Brienne has to press her lips tightly together to hold back an inappropriate noise. His hand slides between them, his wrist pressing against her cunt, and she's certain he can feel how wet and ready she is for him through the fabric. 

The beeping picks up. 

“Hurry,” she urges him. 

“I'm trying,” he says, glaring down at the small gap between their bodies. “I can't do it. The angle is wrong.” Jaime tilts his head to catch her eye. “You have to do it.” 

Brienne laughs once, brief and disbelieving. She checks the monitor. _178_. This is a terrible idea, but they need the knife. “All right.” 

Centering the mission in her mind, she shoves her arm between their stomachs, then fumbles with the opening of Jaime's pants. His muscles jump against her knuckles and as soon as she has the button and zipper open, the hard weight of his engorged cock bumps against her fingers. 

Jaime quietly curses and Brienne tries to ignore him as she sneaks her hand further into his pants and down to his inner thigh. The monitor's going wild now and underneath it she can hear Jaime struggling to even out his breathing; she's not doing much better. His cock slides along her wrist, her forearm, but there's not a lot of space to do otherwise and she can't help but imagine going all the way down until it bumps against her chin. 

_Stop it_ , she orders herself, her fingers curling around the soft, fuzzy skin of his inner thigh. 

“Other side,” he gasps and she gives a frustrated snarl. “I changed legs.” 

“Warn me next time,” she grouses, and twists her hand around. 

“I'm a little distracted,” he says with a breathless laugh. 

Jaime's cock is right there, the musk and sweat scent drifting up and if she doesn't find the knife soon she's going to have to retreat so they don't blow themselves up. But her questing fingertips slide from skin to steel and she sighs in relief, a long blast of air she feels down her arm. 

His cock jumps and he goes rigid and tense with a choked curse as the monitors start to wail. 

Brienne rips the sticky tape quickly and Jaime's whole body winces. She palms the knife, digging the edge into the fleshy part of her thumb to protect him, and pulls her arm back out in a single, sinuous movement. He shudders and she throws herself forward against him, his arms clenching around her in a suffocating embrace so they don't tip over. He thrusts once against her with a throaty growl and then stops, and they both gulp down air, his cock and the bomb hard between them. 

She shuts her eyes and clings to him. They're both utterly still except for the powerful heaving of their chests, the heart monitors a staccato melody echoing around the small space. They stand like that until the monitors quiet as the adrenaline and lust both drop to a simmer. Brienne had caught a glimpse of the number at its peak-- _193._ That had been entirely too close. 

The ropes have slipped enough that she can take a full breath and pull back to stare at Jaime. It's been less than two hours since he'd burst into the room when he should have been running to safety, had laid Connington out and then everything had gone downhill. It feels like a lifetime, though, the long stretching of time like taffy that always happens when one or both of them is in danger. She drinks in the lines of his face, the blood on his lip, the purpling bruise around his eye. His eyes are green and glittering and lit with the fire she warms herself by when they're alone at night. Time snaps back and she wants nothing more than to rip his clothes off and prove that he's whole.

The monitors pick up again and Jaime clenches his jaw so hard in response that she can see the pulse in his temple. 

“When we get out of this, I look forward to you doing that again naked,” he says low and promising, and she puts her hand on his chest to keep either of them from doing something foolish. She can feel his heartbeat with her palm.

“I do, too,” she breathes, her thighs clenching in agreement around his. Brienne knows her psych profile shares at least one thing in common with Jaime's. “Your lip okay?”

He touches the small cut with his tongue and nods, and she restrains a whimper. She watches him gather the edges of his self-control close. “Now what?” 

They both look down at the bomb, their foreheads brushing. With the ropes looser, there's enough room that Brienne can see the full extent of the device. It's sleek, with four multicolored wires connecting the detonator to the plastic explosive. Cutting the correct combination of those will disarm the bomb. They have one chance to get it right. 

“Red, white, blue, and gold.” She gently tests each wire to see if any feel especially loose. None are. The detonator casing is entirely opaque and sealed shut, hiding the connections. 

“Any guesses?”

Brienne knows much of bomb-making is ego-based, so it helps to know who made the device because they'll often choose colors with purpose. She closes her eyes and thinks about Ronnet Connington, as unpleasant of a task as that is. She sees him sneering in triumph when she'd first entered his building, sees him furious and disgusted when she hadn't done as he'd ordered, sees him lying on the floor in terror after Jaime's punch.

Sees the red and white sigil sewn into the shirt of each of his guards. 

“No guessing,” Brienne announces, confident. “It's red and white--his house colors.” 

Jaime breaks into a slow, pleased smile. “Good girl,” he tells her softly, and even though he's said far dirtier things to her, the appreciative timbre of his voice is a sound she can recall from a hundred sweaty nights, and she flushes in response, heat racing over her face and down her neck. Jaime's smile turns sly. Thankfully he only says, “You can have the honors.” 

Brienne unfolds the knife from her palm, sees a bright, thin line of blood that she ignores as she grips the blade. “I need you to hold them taut. I'll count to three and then cut.” 

He grabs the wires and pulls them just enough she'll be able to slice through with little trouble. She settles her blade in place, her grip slippery. 

_We might die here_ , she realizes as the knife creases the wires' casings, and the weight of it steals her breath. After all these years and missions and chances taken, this is a precipice they haven't curved their toes so dangerously over since the Riverlands. “Jaime--” 

He kisses her quiet--sweet but insistent. She curls her free hand around the back of his neck and doesn't let him go. If he won't let her tell him everything she feels, then she'll show him. She's better with actions than words anyway. 

The monitors pick up again, rampaging towards the detonation trigger, but Brienne can't stop their hearts. She breaks the kiss but doesn't pull away, counting against his mouth. If this doesn't work, she'll at least die with his air in her lungs. 

“One... two... three.” 

The sound abruptly cuts off and they stand there, lips lightly touching as they hold their shared breath, wires dangling loose. The silence is heavy, although the beeping still echoes in her head. 

Nothing happens. 

They exhale in perfectly synced explosions, and then Brienne surges towards Jaime, dropping the knife and kissing him in a frenzy he avidly meets, sending them staggering backward into the wall. He grunts with the impact and wraps his arms so tightly around her it hurts, especially where the still-dangerous block of explosives carves a line into her abdomen. 

“Wait, wait,” she coughs out, and they ease back a little. “Sorry, I just...”

“I know,” he says. “Let's get this shit off first.”

They're not as careful as they should be, but they rip the bomb off of his chest, the now-dark monitors off of both of them, and set the entire mess on the floor before she drags Jaime back by his shirt and he's laughing against her tongue. She's laughing, too, delirious with relief and their luck holding one more time. He tugs at her pants and Brienne's got every disappointed mentor's voice in her head berating her, but they'd almost _died_ and the door is sealed shut and she's not going to _not_ fuck her husband who's alive and like sunshine in her grasp. 

“Gods, Brienne,” he breathes. “If you had died--” 

“I didn't,” she reassures him. “And neither did you.”

Jaime tangles his fingers in her hair, kissing her with a hunger that overtakes her own. He spins them so her back is against the wall and his nimble fingers are quick with her pants. He groans as he slides his hand into her underwear between the wet lips of her cunt. Brienne whimpers when his thumb glides over her clit and she bites the straining tendon in his neck when he slips two fingers inside her. Jaime makes a noise like he might actually be dying, his body quaking. Brienne hides her smirk against his shirt.

“Should I be worried that my wife gets turned on by near-death experiences?” he growls into her ear, curling his fingers up until she can't get enough air to respond through the electricity arcing through her. Her hands clutch his arms, keeping him there as his fingers pump in and out. When he pauses and seems like he's going to pull away, she tightens her grip. 

“If you stop,” she manages around the building pressure in her body, “ _you're_ going to have a near-death experience.”

Jaime grins and nips at her jaw, her throat, and she releases his arm to grab his hard cock where it's sticking out of his undone pants, eliciting a ragged moan. He does pull his fingers out of her and Brienne's entire body tries to follow, but he's tugging their underwear down enough to replace his hand with his leaking cock. “This isn't going in the report,” he murmurs before he thrusts inside her and Brienne cries out for more. This isn't the time for soft caresses and tender words, for Jaime's tendency to savor and her desire to linger. She wants the furious snap of his hips, lifting her up onto her toes with each wild stroke. She wants the guttural sounds he's making against her sweat-covered skin. She wants him with a ravenous need that comes only from surviving one more day by his side. 

Even if Connington himself burst in now, neither one of them would stop. 

One of Jaime's hands is flat against the wall by her head and she turns to suck on the sharp bone of his wrist, to taste his pulse on her tongue. Proof of his survival--his heartbeat, the hurricane of his breathing, the thick length of his cock buried inside her. Evidence of her own life in the yearning ache of her cunt, the burn of the concrete on her ass, her greedy palms roaming over his trembling muscles as he fucks her against the wall of what could have been their tomb. 

They could have died--should have died in other times and other places--but they're alive instead and the expletives he spills onto her skin are vulgar thanks, which she repeats into his ear. They're cheek-to-cheek again, bound by their own need, by the sinew of Jaime's arm roped around her waist and keeping her upright.

Brienne's whole body is taut with the growing tension of a timer's inexorable countdown, her blunt nails digging into his shirt. Jaime's hand by her head disappears between them and there's plenty of room this time to work her throbbing clit until she wails, a primal, incoherent noise that explodes in the room and Brienne shudders with the shock of it, arching up off the wall with enough force to move him back a step before he fights back, her equal in this as in everything else. He writhes against her as she clenches around him, until he comes with a hoarse roar. 

There is, again, quiet, except for their heaving breaths, and the ghost of a whine Jaime gives when she pulses around him one more time before he pulls out. They rest their temples against each other and he presses his nose into the hollow of her cheek. Sweat drips down the back of her shirt. 

“That might have been better than the boat,” Jaime says and Brienne snorts, tries to tip her head back to look at him, but the wall doesn't allow her any movement. 

“We do have imminent death and experience on our side.” She kisses the soft lobe of his ear, the sharp edge of his jaw. “That was too close, Jaime.”

“I know.” He mouths the curve of her shoulder. “If you could have gotten out while I was still wearing the bomb, would you have left?” 

Brienne closes her eyes tightly, shakes her head once, no. 

“Then you can't expect me to have left you there with Connington.” 

“It's not the same.”

His lips are tender, but his teeth sting a little when he runs them over the tendon of her neck. “It is and you know it.”

“So you're saying we're both idiots.”

She feels his rueful chuckle against her skin. “Exactly.” 

“What are we going to do?” she asks quietly, and Jaime pulls back, cups her face with gentle hands. For all of W.O.L.F.'s technology, his right hand still has a long scar that runs down the back of it--the first time he'd risked himself for her, but nowhere near the last. She's got her own scars for him as well, and she doesn't regret a single one. 

“We're going to finish the mission,” he tells her. “And then we're going to go home and stay in bed for five days minimum.” 

Brienne's stomach flutters. “Three--we'll need to go shopping.” 

“We can order in,” he says, his mouth twitching. 

Someday they'll need to address this, the reckless give-and-take of their personal safety that's always been between them. But they survived today, so she kisses him with all the love she has before pulling away. 

Jaime takes her hand before she can go too far, examining the cut there. He makes a small, dismayed noise and wipes tenderly at the line of blood with the hem of his shirt, cleaning it off, and then presses a kiss to her palm. She doesn't need the monitors to hear his heart; she never does. Brienne kisses him softly, making sure he hears hers, as well. 

“How do we get out of here, Agent Lannister?” she asks as they get their clothes and themselves back together.

Jaime lifts one elegant eyebrow. “I did get a request out for extraction, but it'll be a while before they get to us. What do you think, Agent Tarth? Are we going to wait for the team?” They're not tethered anymore but they may as well be--he keeps touching her, fingertips and knuckles; she keeps leaning towards him to breathe him in. 

Brienne looks down at the mess of rope and wires and the plastic explosive on the floor, then her gaze flickers to the door before resting on Jaime. He's already smiling in anticipation. 

“Do we ever?” she asks, and he scoops up the device with a slight laugh and sure hands. 

He uses the knife to carefully slice off a piece of the explosive--just big enough to blow the lock and nothing more--and connects the detonator with equal care. 

“How do we set it off?” she asks, after he sets their new, much smaller, bomb in place. 

Jaime holds out the heart monitors. “Same way Connington intended. We'll have to get our heart rates up.” He tugs aside the collar of his polo shirt to reapply the electrode. “I was thinking running in place.” He's faking innocence, but she doesn't bite. 

Brienne applies her own electrode and shrugs a little. The monitors start beeping as soon as she activates the bomb-- _136._ She leaves them with the device; there's no need to track their heartbeats this time.

“We could,” she agrees, before pushing Jaime back against the wall furthest from the door. The beeping jumps up immediately and he's already arching towards her for a kiss. They survived, and they'll keep surviving as long as they're together. Brienne is certain of that. “Or there are other ways.” 

“If you think that'll work,” he whispers, his smile matching hers. 

It doesn't take long to prove her right.


End file.
